The Casals Festival Today
Pablo Casals died on October 22, 1973. His widow Marta Casals who was the president of the musical committee and Co‑Chairman of the Board and Music Director until 1979, undertook to continue the annual event. The festival has now taken on a new dimension with the appointment of pianist and scholar Elías López-Sobá and bass/baritone Justino Díaz as artistic and musical directors. These two renowned Puerto Rican artists have continued to follow the legacy of Pablo and Marta Casals, attracting many world-famous musicians for a series of concerts. The festival which is now held at the Luis A. Ferre Performing Arts Center in San Juan, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006 with a performance of the Philadelphia Orchestra under the musical direction of Maestro Christoph Eschenbach.
The Prades Festival established by Casals in France in 1950 was renamed the Pablo Casals Festival in 1982.
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Famous quotes containing the words festival and/or today:
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“We had to take the world as it was given:
The nursemaid sitting passive in the park
Was rarely by a changeling prince accosted,
The mornings happened similar and stark
In rooms of selfhood where we woke and lay
Watching today unfold like yesterday.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)